The Network

by Luke Delaney

  ‘They’re both for you,’ he told Sean. ‘I didn’t know which you preferred so I brought you one of each. Neither has ever been touched before, but they’ve been well groomed. They know what to do and the rewards they’ll receive. They won’t tell anyone about it, so do what you want with them, but don’t mark them. They need to be sent home once you’re finished. Here,’ Conway added pushing the hood he’d worn earlier into his hand, ‘use this until you decide on what mask you want. Can’t have you being recognized now can we?’ Sean took the mask without speaking, his eyes fixed on the young bodies under the blanket. ‘Okay, children,’ Conway suddenly spoke loudly clapping his hands like a school teacher, ‘time to play.’ The girl pulled the blanket from both of them and began to walk slowly towards him, a nervous, mischievous smile spreading across her face as she approached, her head full of warped ideas placed there by months of grooming, ready to perform acts she shouldn’t have even been aware of let alone ready to commit. Conway placed a hand on Sean’s frozen shoulder as he slipped from the room. ‘Enjoy yourself. And remember, Justin, everything’s being recorded.’ Conway looked in the direction of the camera. ‘I may want to watch your little home movie later – for my pleasure.’ Sean felt Conway’s hand slide from his shoulder as he left the room, the door closing silently behind him. The girl continued to slowly advance towards him, her immature nakedness startling and repelling, transfixing and terrifying.

  ‘It’s alright,’ she told him softly. ‘I know what to do. I won’t tell anyone. You can do whatever you like to me. I won’t mind.’ Sean pushed the demons away and snapped himself back to reality, quickly covering the short distance between them, spinning her around by the shoulders and marching her back to the boy and the sofa. He forced her to sit, folding the blanket over her frail body. ‘You’re hurting me,’ she complained, increasing the look of panic and fear in the boy’s eyes. ‘You’re not supposed to hurt us – Mr Conway promised.’

  ‘What else did Mr Conway promise?’ Sean asked, suddenly aware of the need to gather evidence, to secure witnesses and find victims. ‘What does he tell you to do?’

  ‘You know,’ she answered suspiciously, ‘he showed us some films – they showed us what to do. Then he said he’d bring men to us and that we should do things for them – things we’ve seen in the films – and they’d give us money and other things and that we wouldn’t be hurt.’

  ‘Listen.’ Sean told her glancing over his shoulder at the camera, praying he wasn’t being watched on a live feed to the others, or even worse being listened to, but either way it was too late now. This was the end game. ‘You shouldn’t do these things – it’s wrong. You’re too young and the men are too old. These men are bad men.’

  ‘No they’re not,’ she argued. ‘They’re kind and they give us things – nice things our parents won’t let us have. And Mr Conway listens to us – he understands us.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ he told her. ‘These men are bad men – they’re going to use you and lie to you.’

  ‘Why are you saying these things?’ she asked through swelling tears. ‘Who are you?’

  Sean breathed in deeply before answering, the relief of suddenly shedding Justin Cramer and becoming himself once more almost overwhelming. ‘I’m a police officer – Detective Sergeant Sean Corrigan – and I’m gonna get you out of here. But first I need to know if there are any more children in the house. Were any other children brought to the house?’

  The girl had gone blank, frozen in a catatonic state, as if the reality of Sean’s words had paralyzed her mind and body, but the boy began to stir. ‘I think there were,’ he answered weakly. ‘When we first got here – I think I saw some other children going into another room.’

  ‘Where?’ Sean asked quickly and quietly. ‘Where did you see them?’

  ‘Along the hallway.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘I don’t know. Five or six.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Sean whispered, reeling at the scale of The Sanctum’s abuse.

  His mental paralysis was shattered as the door behind them flew open and the men now wearing balaclavas poured through the narrow gap in a seemingly never-ending flow of retribution. Sean managed to spin as he rose from kneeling in front of the children and catch the first intruder on the chin, sending him spiraling away and down. But the second man he hit was already too close to be hurt, his weight and the weight of those behind him sending them crashing to the floor with Sean pinned under the falling bodies. He struggled in vain until exhaustion and the reality of the situation got the better of him. The men above him peeled off one-by-one, pulling him into a sitting position with his arms twisted painfully behind his back, one attacker for each, while three more stood closely in front of him ready to rain down punches and kicks. But instead they waited, and Sean knew who for.

  After what seemed like minutes Conway drifted into the room, unmasked and smiling slightly, shaking his head like a disapproving parent to a child. He leant in so close that Sean could smell his minted breath – his eyes were sparkling with cunning and anticipation. ‘Did you really think I didn’t know what you are? From the very first time you looked at me in that stinking prison I knew you were an undercover. Your eyes betrayed you. You looked too long and too deep, like only a policeman looks. You fucked up, Justin, or should I say Detective Sergeant Sean Corrigan? That is what you told the children isn’t it?’ Sean looked accusingly at the camera on its tripod. ‘From the very first second, you fucked up.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Sean lied. ‘My name is Justin Cramer.’ Buy time. Just buy time until the arrest team gets here. Tell them nothing.

  ‘No more lies,’ Conway told him, his voice slightly raised, the smile gone from his face. ‘No more pointless lies. There are more important things to take care of now.’ He looked at the boy and girl and licked his dry lips with the tip of his tongue. ‘You haven’t unwrapped your presents yet,’ he continued. ‘If you don’t want them there are plenty who will. But you do want them don’t you?’

  ‘It’s over,’ Sean ignored him. ‘You’re fucked.’

  ‘Do you know why I let you in to the inner Sanctum, despite the fact I knew exactly what you were?’

  ‘You’re talking shit. You don’t know who I am – you never have.’

  ‘You may be a policeman, but that only runs skin deep – doesn’t it, my friend? Because deep down, where the others can’t see – I know what you really are. You’re one of us. You may have different tastes, clearly children aren’t your thing, but there’s a darkness in you that runs oh so very deep.’

  Sean shook his head feigning disbelief. He knew what Conway meant, but how did he know? How could he see? ‘Jesus Christ,’ Sean finally answered. ‘You thought you could turn me. You thought I’d join you?’

  ‘Not turn you – awaken you. You already are one of us, of sorts.’

  ‘You’re desperate, Conway. You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘We both know that’s not true,’ Conway told him. ‘You know there’s nothing wrong with what we do. So what if the law and society says that children shouldn’t be touched – they simply don’t understand, can’t see the beauty in being with them in the way we can. They’re the ones with something wrong with them – not us. That’s their misinformed judgement. Don’t deny yourself the simple pleasures God put on this earth for men like us any longer. Work with us to lead the police away from The Sanctum. You can be our man on the inside – not theirs. That’s why you’re here. That’s why I took you in – to save you. Do that and I’ll get you anything you want. Women? Grown women? Is that what you want?’

  ‘You’re fucking mad,’ Sean argued. ‘I’m not like you. I’ll never be like you. I’m here to take you down – not join you. I’m gonna bury you – all of you.’

  ‘Then you’ve made your choice,’ Conway barked. ‘You can’t be saved if you’re too weak to admit what you are – to embrace and relish your strength and differen
ce from the mindless masses who wander through life never feeling anything more than self-satisfied contentedness. We live, my friend, as we were supposed to live.’

  ‘You’re going back to prison, Conway. For a long time.’

  ‘Really? How so? What evidence do you have? I know you’ve never taped any of our conversations. I know you’ve never been followed to any of our meetings. The warehouse was cleared of anything incriminating and within ten minutes this house will be, too – and the children sent on their way never to be found. So what do you have? Your word? An undercover cop who supplied me with suggestive photographs when we were in prison – who’s acted as an agent provocateur throughout? You’ll never even get past the CPS.’

  Sean smiled in spite of his fear and loathing. ‘In ten minutes it’ll be too late,’ he warned Conway and his followers. ‘You’re finished.’

  ‘Really?’ Conway asked disbelievingly. ‘How so? I can’t see any other policemen,’ he told his laughing subordinates. ‘I can’t hear any sirens. You have no mobile phone to call the cavalry on – no tracker concealed on you – the only way you could have signaled for help would be if …’ Conway froze for a second before pulling the keys for the Zodiac from his pocket and dangling the fob in front of Sean’s face. Sean’s smile grew wider. ‘Clear everything out,’ Conway suddenly shouted at the men in balaclavas, urgency straining his commands and causing panic. ‘Get rid of the children. You,’ he pointed at one of the men. ‘Take these keys and drive his car as far away as you can.’

  ‘No way,’ the man protested. ‘I’m not taking the fall for you.’

  Conway was about to reprimand him before another dissenting voice cut him short. ‘We need to get rid of the pig. Without the pig, they’ve got nothing.’

  ‘Yeah,’ the other balaclava agreed. ‘We have to do him.’

  Sean could feel his heartbeat accelerating before Conway tried to restore order. ‘Don’t be damn fools. Kill a cop and be hunted down like a pack of rabid dogs and spend the rest of your lives behind bars? Even with him alive they’ve got nothing. Now clear out the house.’

  ‘Fine,’ the lead balaclava,’ answered, ‘but you’re on your own, Conway. Time to save my own skin.’

  ‘You can’t desert The Sanctum.’

  ‘The Sanctum’s finished,’ the balaclava told him. ‘Now it’s every man for himself.’

  Sean felt the men standing behind him release their grip and quickly follow their new unelected leader out of the room, heading towards the exits from the house, leaving him alone with Conway.

  Sean sprang to his feet, the stiffness in his knees and the ache in his shoulders forgotten as his right hand fired towards Conway and gripped him around the throat, his fingers holding him firmly around the trachea. As he increased the pressure of his grip, Conway’s eyes bulged with dammed blood. It was the first time Sean had sensed fear in the man and he liked it.

  ‘I saved you,’ Conway managed to whisper, his voice raspy and distorted. ‘They would have killed you if it wasn’t for me.’

  ‘I owe you nothing but contempt,’ Sean told him, his grip tightening so Conway could barely speak or breathe.

  ‘What are you going to do? Kill me? Then do it. Do it. You haven’t got the courage,’ Conway spat at him through his collapsing windpipe, flecks of his spittle flying through the air across the short distance between them and spraying into Sean’s face.

  Sean pushed Conway down on his knees and released his grip. ‘Kill you? You’re not worth it. You’re not worth anything.’ He grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back to his feet, spinning him around and pushing him towards the door, looking over his shoulder at the boy and girl huddled under the blanket. ‘You two wait here. Someone will come for you.’

  ‘Are we in trouble?’ the boy asked, his eyes full of terror as Sean could hear the sounds of cars and vans screeching to a halt outside the house.

  ‘No,’ Sean answered without emotion. ‘You’re not in trouble. None of you are.’ He shoved Conway in the back without speaking and marched him towards the front door as the usual mix of uniformed and plain-clothed police flooded into the house while others ran amok outside chasing down the fleeing disciples of The Sanctum.

  As he headed down the hallway two determined-looking uniforms came towards him shouting their commands. ‘Police. Get up against the wall – hands high and legs spread.’ Sean pushed Conway against the wall and kicked his legs into position. ‘You too, you bastard.’

  ‘I’m Old Bill,’ Sean shouted. ‘Undercover Officer.’

  ‘Then let’s see some I.D.’

  ‘I don’t have any. Like I said – I’m undercover.’

  The uniformed officer was about to speak again until a voice Sean recognized cut him off. ‘He’s alright, boys. He’s one of us.’ Sean looked around to see the man who’d tried to attack Conway in prison all those weeks ago walking casually along the hallway towards them, his warrant card hanging from a thin metal chain around his neck.

  ‘Thanks, Nathan,’ Sean said before turning to the uniformed officers and pushing Conway towards them. ‘Here. You can have this one. Cuff him and get him back to whatever nick you’re using.’ They cuffed Conway without further discussion and marched him from the house. Sean reached the front door in time to see Conway being driven away in the back of a police car as he looked back and smiled towards him.

  ‘You alright?’ DC Nathan Hansen asked. ‘Haven’t seen you since our little play fight in the prison yard.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Sean half lied.

  ‘I see our little act convinced them you we’re one of them then.’

  ‘Apparently so,’ Sean answered.

  ***

  Sean eased the big old Ford Zodiac through the ever-swelling London rush hour traffic heading for Victoria and New Scotland Yard where he knew DS Chopra would be waiting for him in the little back room in the SO10 office. The de-brief would take a few hours at least, during which Chopra would pretend to be listening to a break-down of how he thought the undercover operation had gone, while really he would be dissecting Sean’s psyche with every word he spoke – looking for signs he was about to tip over the edge, dragged to the brink of insanity by the unrelenting stress of being someone else – never knowing when or if the organization he was infiltrating would unmask him.

  It would be late before he got home – late before he could stand in a burning hot shower and try to wash away the lingering remnants of Justin Cramer, John Conway, The Network and The Sanctum, although he knew he would never truly forget them. He’d carry them with him forever – remembering them from time to time, particularly when he touched investigations of similar crimes or met similar offenders. But they wouldn’t haunt him, unlike the faces of the children he’d seen in the films and at the house, their innocent cooperation and naïve complicity in repulsive acts. He saw their faces in his past and knew he’d see them in his future. For anybody else it would be considered overexposure to traumatic events, but cops just called it experience. With each experience he grew in some ways, but died a little more in others as each investigation stripped him of another layer of genuine human compassion, hardening the shell that grew around him, insulating him from the world he had to deal with, pushing him away from everyday people and their everyday lives. As soon as he finished the de-brief and escaped from The Yard he’d begin the process of clearing out his mind of the last few weeks and he was already looking forward to some more mundane police work, although he knew it wouldn’t be enough for him – not long term.

  He shook the nagging thoughts from his mind and pictured Kate. He’d already called her from a payphone, deliberately not apologizing for his apparent disappearance, instead promising to explain why he’d had no choice if she’d agree to see him again. She’d been cold at first, but had relented and warmed as she’d felt the genuine urgency in his voice. She’d agreed to meet him back at his flat, no matter how late, the physical desire to be with each other laying waste to any doubts either of them
might have. The moment he’d heard her voice down the phone he knew she was the one – knew they would be together forever. A cop and an A & E doctor – what could work better? Someone he could love without bullshitting all the time. Someone who saw the same hard edges of the world he saw almost every day.

  He broke out of his daydream just in time to see the red light of a pedestrian crossing, hitting the breaks hard to stop the big old car in time and watch as a young mother led her two children across the road in front of him – one boy and one girl aged about nine and ten. The girl smiled at Sean through the windscreen. He smiled back.

  COMING SOON

  The new Sean Corrigan novel

  The Toy Taker

  Read an extract now …

  1

  The street was quiet, empty of the noise of living people, with only the sound of a million leaves hissing in the strong breeze that intensified as it blew in over Hampstead Heath in north-west London. Smart Georgian houses lined either side of the deserted Courthope Road, all gently washed in the pale yellow of the street lights, their warming appearance giving lie to the increasingly bitter cold that late autumn brought with it. Some of the shallow porches added their own light to the yellow, left on by security-conscious occupiers and those too exhausted to remember to switch them off before heading for bed. But these were the homes of London’s affluent, who had little to fear from the streets outside – the hugely inflated house prices ensuring the entire area was a sanctuary for the rich and privileged. Higher than normal police patrols, private security firms and state-of-the-art burglar alarms meant the people within slept soundly and contentedly.

  His gloved fingers worked quickly and nimbly as he crouched by the front door, the small powerful torch – the type used by pot-holers, strapped to his forehead by an elasticated band – provided him with more than enough light to see inside the locks on the door: two deadlocks, top and bottom, and a combined deadlock and latch in the centre. His warm breath turned to plumes of mist that swirled in the tubular light of the torch before disappearing into the night, making way for the next calmly expelled breath. He’d already unlocked the top and bottom deadlocks easily enough – a thousand hours of practice making the task simple, but the centre locks were new and more sophisticated. Still he remained totally calm as he gently and precisely worked the two miniature tools together, each of which looked similar to the type of instruments a dentist would use – the thin wrench with its slightly hooked end holding the first of the lock’s pins down as the pick silently slid quickly back and forth until eventually it aligned all the pins in the barrel of the lock and it clicked open. It was a tiny sound, but one that in the emptiness of the street made him freeze, holding his breath as he waited for any reaction in the night that surrounded him. When his lungs began to burn he exhaled the dead air, taking a second to look at his watch. It was just gone 3 a.m. The family inside would be in the deepest part of their sleep – at their least likely to react to any slight sound or change in the atmosphere.